Critique? India-style Rye Ale

[dmercer]

So last summer, Summit Brewing released #3 in their Unchained Series, what they called an India Style Rye Ale. I was able to grab a few pints on tap, and it was a really excellent beer. Hoppy, but not in-your-face, backed with a solid malt bill and some nice rye spiciness.

From their announcment:

India Style Rye Ale uses specialty rye malts such as Crystal Rye, Chocolate Rye and Flaked Rye, along with 2-row Harrington. The brew contains Summit hops for bittering and Citra hops for aroma. It’s also dry hopped with Citra. And American Ale yeast gives the beer a nice, clean flavor.

I've never busted out a recipe from scratch before, but found the following over at BeerAdvocate (I think these were printed on the 6-packs):

• OG: 14 Plato
• IBU 60
• ABV: 6.3%

Here's what I came up with:

Grist - OG = 1.057, Color = 13 SRM (Copper to Red/Lt. Brown)
====================================
 
 80%    8#  8oz     American Two-row
 14%    1#  8oz     Flaked Rye
  5%    -   8oz     Crystal Rye Malt
  2%    -   4oz     Chocolate Rye

HOPS - 60 IBU total (hopville avg)
================================
1.0  oz Summit (18%AA) for 60m
0.75 oz Citra (11%) for 5m
0.75 oz Citra (11%) at flameout

Dry hop 7 days with 1.5 oz citra

Planning on throwing some Wyeast 1056 at this
Should I add some rye malt and drop the 2-row a bit? Other comments would be most helpful. As I said, this is my first off-the-cuff recipe, and I have very little experience with rye.

 

[coslor]

I'll leave it to somebody with more experience with specialty rye malts to critique the recipe, but I will offer a cautionary tale. Last weekend, I did an AG red rye ale, during which my usual brew partner didn't show up, and I was teaching some brewing newbies about the process, drinking beer, socializing and generally doing too many things at once. When I finished the mash, I realized that my pre-boil gravity was nearly 20 points off!

It took me a couple of days to realize that I had milled the rye with all of the other grain, and since the rye grains are hull-less and smaller in general, they probably didn't get crushed much. Sure enough, Beersmith confirms that my OG is about where it would have been with no rye at all.

So, the moral is: if you're not experienced with rye, make sure they get milled separately, so that you can evaluate the grind and re-run them or tighten up the gap on your mill if you have to.

 

[chapa]

Your OG is a little higher than theirs, 14 Plato converts to 1.057. No big deal though. I'm not really familiar with rye(just bottled my first Imperial RyePA a few weeks ago), but I imagine you could go with more of the flaked rye...then again I've never used crystal rye and chocolate rye, so I'm sure you'll already be getting some good rye flavors from them also. Luckily you have a LOT of info to go on, so I'm sure you'll be able to nail it down pretty good after brewing it a few times, but I bet your 1st go-round is still awesome!

Good luck!

 

[dmercer]

Interesting. If I bump the flaked rye to 2#, and drop the 2-row to 8#, it comes out to 1.057 OG

At 20% rye, I'd imagine I'd want some rice hulls in the mash.

 

[chapa]

Well doesn't that just work out perfectly!

Yes, from what I've read, it would be a good idea to do rice hulls at that %. Better safe than sorry!

Sounds like you've got yourself a recipe there and a solid start on a clone! Good luck!